Pitching & Writing A Channel 5 Theme Tune

When Channel 5 decided to re‑do the music for their daily magazine show, Exclusive, Big George was asked to pitch for the job, and went about it in his usual idiosyncratic way...

Throughout 1997 I've had the privilege to pen a number of articles for this most excellent magazine. These have included pieces about writing jingles for TV, and the constraints of working to completed animated title sequences. This month I'm going to tell you the history of one particular job I completed recently, from start to finish. What follows is not a typical story of getting a job composing music for the industry, but the truth is that there is no standard way of getting a job in film, TV or radio.

As a commercial composer by trade, much of my restful life (sic) is spent looking at the telephone and willing it to ring with offers of lucrative work. Of course, I do send out at least 25 CVs, showreels, begging letters and blackmail demands every month. I've given up going down to London to wait in reception for up to an hour after the arranged appointment time in order to agree with everything an egocentric TV producer says.

It's an indisputable fact that there are more self‑obsessed know‑alls in TV and advertising than any other industry (including the record industry) — and they all reside in London. But if you're just starting in the business and you live hundreds of miles away from London, you've either got to think about moving nearer (I live 50 miles away on a good train line) or be prepared to spend at least a couple of days a month going in to meet these people. And don't forget: smile while you agree with everything they say.

What About The Job?

A couple of weeks before the hugely successful launch of Channel 5, I got a call (completely out of the blue) from a producer at the highly respected and giant independent TV production company Mentorn Films. She invited me down for a chat to see if I would be interested in writing the theme and incidentals for their forthcoming weekday magazine programme, Exclusive.

I played it cool and arranged to meet her first thing the next day. On arrival at her office, I was horrified to find that a piece of music had been approved by the head of the company an hour before our meeting. Rather than going ballistic about having my chain pulled, I decided to remain calm, put it down to experience and chat about how good the show was going to be — all essential aspects of networking. (NB: Networking = finding out who does what, who works for who and how you can get in on whatever's happening.)

A few months later, long after Channel 5 had begun broadcasting to dozens of viewers, I received another call from Mentorn, this time from the current editors Paul Gibbs and Julian Philips (who just happen to be good blokes. See — there are some about). They had been brought in to boost ratings by re‑launching the show, very successfully, and had already changed the format of the show and the opening animated title sequence. The music had also been changed (though this was nothing to do with them), to a piece that was on file with Mentorn Films' publishing company Golden Break Music Limited. Frankly, no‑one was happy with it — hence their call to me, I guess. I was asked to go down to Mentorn for another meeting about composing the music for Exclusive.

They showed me the new title sequence, which was pretty smart but didn't fit with the new music that had been stuck over it. Then they asked if I could go away and demo an upbeat theme in my crash‑bang‑wallop style (in other words "Can we have something that sounds like Have I Got News For You?"). I said "No". "What d'you mean, no?!" was their shocked reply.

Well, the problem is that I've been burnt a number of times through doing cassette demos for TV producers who believe, in their chemical confusion, that the world revolves around their every memo — when in reality the pinnacle of their career was working on a game show where third‑rate celebrity guests and members of the public answer stupid questions, while canned laughter props up the host's comic talents. Bitter? Of course I am — these people steal your ideas, and there's nothing you can do about it. (See the 'True Story' box.)

So What Did They Say?

"But how are we going to know how it will sound?" Paul and Julian asked, quite reasonably. I responded that if they wanted a theme with the feel and sound of Have I Got News For You they could hear it the same way the producers of that programme heard it for the first time: down the phone, performed on guitar and kazoo.

They pointed out that other people — such as the head of Channel 5 entertainment, Alan Nixon — also needed to hear the tune. "Well, let's go to his office, so I can play it to him at the same time as playing it to you and anyone else who needs to hear it," I replied, without a note ready to play. They said that they would see if he would go for it, and I said that I'd go away and compose the best theme on Channel 5.

About a week later, I got a call to say that it was on. All that remained for me to do was write the tune — always the easiest part of the process. I'd taken away a video of the opening graphics, with the current (but to be replaced) music, which I simply turned down on my TV.

Show US What It's Made Of

My first job was to work out a convenient bpm template which would hit all the major points of action in the opening graphic sequence. I eventually decided on 150bpm (I thought it should have a '5' in it somewhere). The next job was barring out a chord sequence. I toyed with the idea of writing the theme tune in 5/4 but decided against it. For a TV programme you want a tune the milkman can whistle — although I did come up with a killer 5/4 Channel 5 logo sting that bears only a passing resemblance to the Mission Impossible theme. Maybe I ought to call them about it...

Now it was time to come up with a chord structure and top line. I decided that, as Exclusive is an upbeat, positive show, the best way of reflecting this was to have the chords (all major) moving up. Kicking off with an E (for Exclusive) the sequence is E/G/A/CD/E/G/AC/DG/, ending on a ball‑busting top E. As for the drum part, I used my favourite beat, fours on the snare (aka the 'F beat' — can you guess why?), which would perfectly lead into the big drum fill on the sixth bar (a graphics hit‑point) that sets off the piano glissando (another hit point) in the next bar, before the big ending. Fantastic!

Apart from the first beat, which is on the downbeat, every bar is pushed (hitting a quaver before the downbeat), as this gives a sense of urgency to the music. It also helped to reinforce graphic hit‑points. The version of the theme that runs with the end credits (which are slightly longer and have no graphics) is on the beat. This gives the piece more consolidation — good for rolling the credits over. There's a production graphic (the bit that tells you who made the show) to hit at the end of the piece, but that was easy to do — a one‑bar shlanging hold with a piano flurry, finished off with a huge 'Splatt'! So far, all this existed only on paper.

First Things First

With my acoustic guitar under my arm, a kazoo in my gob, and one of those tiny Marshall pocket battery amps to plug the SR16 drum box into (just for timing, you understand — a good drummer will make a session, and I always use the best) I went off with Mr Gibbs and Mr Philips to the Channel 5 head office in Covent Garden. We waited much less than an hour in order to play my masterpiece to Channel 5's entertainment head‑honcho, Alan Nixon. I set up in his office, explained to him why I don't do demo cassettes, and then put the video of the show in the machine, muted the sound and played my tune.

The truth is that there is no standard way of getting a job in film, TV or radio.

At first I got the impression that he thought this was one of those Noel Edmunds pranks, but after I'd explained that with a kick‑arse horn section and a spanking drummer the tune would sound the total business, he saw I meant it. After a couple more plays and a cup of tea, he went for it — or, to be more accurate, said he loved the idea, thought the approach was right for the show and would give his final decision next week at their monthly get‑together.

Panic Stations

I went home quite happy with my morning's work and decided I wouldn't do any of the other 30 or so cues which the show needed until I got the green light. The green light duly came, a week later, from one of the producers. Channel 5 had had their meeting and were prepared to finance the recording, which was to take place as soon as possible.

Composing and scoring the parts is one thing, but booking the right band and studio requires major juggling of who's available, when, and where. To complicate things even further, Exclusive wanted to film the recording session as an item for the show, so accommodating everything was a nightmare of logistics.

When I'm doing TV and radio work, I use a live band wherever possible. For one thing, all the best TV signature tunes are played by people, not machines. And even though there's so much work involved in actually preparing for the job, when a live recording session is finished the job is finished — no tweaking this bit on the sequencer and changing that patch setting in the studio upstairs.

Just when I had finally got my favourite players booked, and confirmed a date with the studio which was also convenient with the film crew, I received a phone call. It was a lawyer, saying that before I could go ahead with the session the chief executive of Mentorn Films wanted to hear the piece, and could I send a demo of it on cassette? NO! I don't do cassette demos, blah blah blah...

Go Back And Do It Again

So I had to have a meeting with the head of Mentorn, Mr Tom Gutteridge, and go through the whole guitar and kazoo thing again. Never mind — the tune was a corker, the approach to recording, with a live band smacking it out, was sound, and I have no fear of presenting my ideas. He explained to me that Mentorn must make the maximum amount of money possible for all music used in the making of their programmes. All the music on all Mentorn programmes has to be administered by Mentorn's publishing company, Golden Break Music. They take half the performance royalty and all income the music earns in any other way: take it or leave it. This type of deal is not uncommon these days — in fact it can be a lot worse. I took it.

I'd already composed all the cues and plotted them so that they could be mixed and matched. This means that all cues can be 'crashed' together, as the nature of the show makes accurate timings for cues impossible. So half the cues are 'crash endings'. These do exactly what they sound as though they should do — one looped sting is used as a voice‑over bed and when the piece winds up you crash‑end it with one of the other stings. Using the 'F beat' helps too, as putting a crash end on any beat doesn't make it fall out of time. This is more than can be said for the majority of daytime TV magazine shows, where long stings suddenly end out of nowhere, or limply fade out, or go into a weird time signature in order to finish.

What's The Score?

With 34 cues written for eight players (including my part — did you think I'd remember them just because I wrote them?) I decided to get horn‑playing guru Dick Hanson (ex‑Shaking Stevens, amongst many other more credible names) to transpose and copy the sax and trumpet parts in their relevant keys. I had enough scoring to do with drum, bass, piano and guitar parts.

Then, for the second time, I booked the best players in town and a day at the compact but superbly appointed Sound Suite studios in Camden, with Pete Rackham engineering. I organised the rhythm section to start their three‑hour session an hour before the horns turned up, so that we could get a drum sound and make sure the backbeat groove was right. This scheduling also meant that, if need be, the horns had an hour to overdub any parts that didn't quite sit properly during a live take. If you're aiming to record 34 cues in two hours you have to be totally sure the parts work and the players can sight‑read with pizzazz. The fact that most of the cues were shorter than seven seconds helped a fair bit, but it was a pressurised session nonetheless. Even more pressure was heaped on by the arrival of the film crew halfway through, asking us to run through the theme a couple of times so that they could get their angles right, and so on. I was a bit shocked to see a well‑known newsreader in the control room — was News At Ten doing an exposé on composers bluffing as bass players? No such luck — he'd popped in to take one of the TV producers to the pub and was just seeing what was going on: BOING! In truth, I think the intrusion of the cameras, both film and still (the photos from the latter can be seen accompanying this article), helped to keep everyone on their toes.

We striped the 2‑inch multitrack tape with SMPTE code, so that the automated desk could keep mixing as easy as possible, and laid down a click‑track to keep strict time for both the opening title graphic hit‑points and the crash endings. The musicians were all on top form, as that calibre of player always is, and the music sounds... well, check for yourself on Channel 5 every night at 7pm, every morning at 10am (which, as every composer will tell you, is Tellytubby time), and on Sundays.

After everyone had done their part, which included signing the MU/PACT agreement and being paid, I was left with Pete, the engineer, to mix. We started by going for a curry, after which we set up the automated mix, gated the drums, had a cup of tea and compressed the horns a touch. We monitored it all through a little portable radio. I took the DAT master home and, using my ancient Mega 4 Atari‑based Sound Tools, cleaned up the starts and ends. I delivered the job the next day and it went on air three days later, with the short 'making of' piece. I looked as though I hadn't slept for a month — which is about right, as the week before I'd done the music for Jo Brand's Channel 4 series Like It Or Lump It, and I'm in the middle of composing and recording a Children's Symphony (for details see all the press I'll be blagging as soon as I can get round to it).

They Didn't Get My Good Side

One minor thing wrong with the film piece was that when Ian the cameraman asked us to play the theme a couple of times to get the right angles, he said that the film would be used to accompany the finished mix. But when they showed us playing, they actually used the sound from Ian's camera, which had picked up whatever it was directed at. So at one point all you could hear was the horns wailing, then the drummer took a lead role, and throughout there was no bass at all (I was DI'd). Maybe I could release it as a Dub mix. Oops, I can't — I don't have any rights over it any more.

Now that everything is in the can, on the box, with all contracts signed, sealed and delivered, I guess it's back to watching the phone again. Anyone out there want a tune for anything?